


Birds, Cats, and- Oh God, What Is That?!

by blagtiwitenois



Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: Birds, Birdwatching, Cats, Dreaming, Gen, Yes; it does it explode
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blagtiwitenois/pseuds/blagtiwitenois
Summary: You're out on in solitary at the beach, birdwatching. A poor piper gets injured, and as you watch it die, something terrifying happens.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Birds, Cats, and- Oh God, What Is That?!

It's absolutely beautiful out on the beach. Massive waves churn in scenic violence, safely out of range. They rush towards the shore but diminish into a gentle flood, and by the time it reaches you, it's only a few inches deep. You're standing in the surf barefoot, breathing in the Californian air. Yes, it's California, much moreso Monterey Bay. You had been preparing for this trip all month, and when the time came you had no hesitation getting here. By car, by plane, by walk... all that jazz, and now you're here! The water diverges into v-trails as it attempts to surmount your ankles, predictably failing to do so. The white sands stretch behind you into dunes, entangled with sea figs and sagebrush. Spotting a bird with a bright red beak, you realise it's a Heerman's Gull. Out here, it's just you and your binoculars, and now this bird. You peer into the instrument, adjusting the focus dial to try and get the best definition. It opens its mouth to squawk out its comedic call, that being multiple humanlike  _ ows.  _ This is suddenly drowned out by a cacophony of frantic twittering and wings, you turning around to see a bind of sandpipers (which one, you can't really tell, they all look the same anyway) fluttering down to the shore a few yards away.

The sun is covered by a thin veil of clouds, and fog drifts on the ocean in the distance. The sea shines like polished kyanite, steel-blue and white foam a vast sheet of tabular and needle-clustered crystal. You're grateful that there's no one here, just you by all by your own.

You stalk the sandpipers, watching their innocuous and magnified movements, all their delicate feathers and angry scuffles, searching for mole crabs and small bivalves. You remove the binoculars from your face to watch them from a normal perspective.

A wave crashes into a cluster of tall granite boulders some ways away, prompting you to look at the rocks. Subsequently, you remember what you really came here for: the tidepools. It wouldn't be just these whimbrels and godwits, but a different assortment of birds to spot. Not to mention the other things of interest there, anemones, hermit crabs, and strange dead things one finds from time to time. (You once found a large, hard, but apparently fleshy entity that looked like a sweet potato from the backside and a withdrawn snail from the other. When you threw it off a rock, it bounced.)

You make a face at recollecting the bizarreness of that situation, and turn back to fetch your shoes. A large rope of kelp rolls around, half in the water, half on land. For the beached seaweed, brine flies swarm the giant multicellular algae, much to your disgust. Waving a hand, you can  _ feel _ them hit your palm.

Once you're at the location where your shoes are placated, you brush the sand off that's sticking to your feet, then picking up your shoes and pouring more sand out. You should've brought sandals, but it's too late at this point. You continue to the tidepools.

When you arrive, a large Western Gull is roosting there, casting you an inebriated glance with its small eye. You stand there and stare at it for a while, switching between casual observation and usage of the binoculars.

Moving further in, you find yourself having to employ your arms for stability, courtesy of the purplish algae growing on there. The concern that you may hit your head and never think straight again is at your heels, and just looking at the slippery covering of zoophytes makes you shudder. The rocks extend into a small peninsula, allowing more exposure to the violence of the sea. You wonder if you should go over there, but it looks terrifying. Over there is a group of Black Turnstones scrambling around the rocks. Some spontaneously burst into flight as the madness of the water thrashes around them, trying to strike down the little birds. The rapid beating of their pied wings combines with their flustered stuttering for an intriguing audiovisual.

As you have a better view of the open ocean, you can now see a Double-Crested Cormorant atop an area of uncresting water, undulating with floating beds of kelp. In one swift motion, it dives beneath the surface. You look back at the turnstones, who are busying along in their dazzling confusion. They seem to be having a stressful time, the waves lashing harder. The wind picks up, blowing the spray in your face, prompting you to turn away. A commotion of these turnstone sounds arises, and you turn around again. The birds are shrieking, making tight and crazed manoeuvres, leaping up into the air as if they were being shocked. They turn to each other and lunge, seizing feathers and pulling them out with a vicious jerk of the head, trilling and twisting and turning. What the hell is this? Not wanting to see this avian anarchy ensue any further, you make your way towards the flock fight. They notice you, instinct kicking in as they hastily vacate the premises, all with a strange, unstable takeoff. Their wings lock and unlock with arthritis-like snapping.

You find your eyes trailing an individual who is in this process of leaving, a most erratic aversion as they attempt to dodge and weave between towers of sandstone and bentonite. So close to crashing, so close to liberation...

You cringe as it hits one of the rocks, dropping out of view. But not out of accessibility, as there's a small area down there, on the other side of where you were first. A of sound placed between a scream and a screech resounds, like a toddler who just stumbled and fell (and, you know, the horrid ensuing of that noise that makes fresh milk curdle). It repeats. And repeats again. And again, with each time you becoming more disturbed. It could be the bird, who knows?

You climb down the rocks, puzzling at the noise and the state of the bird. Once you're on the ground, you scan this enclosed space, surrounded by chaparral, sea, and the rocks. The sand is still white, meaning it shouldn't be that difficult to spot the dark creature. Looking parallel to the tidepools, you find a crumpled thing that seems to move a bit, and head over there. You stop in front of it, and look down, finding what you were looking for. Being the suspect of the noise, it also confirms that it caused that, you frowning at the unpleasant noise in full and audible definition.

You pick it up, however questionable it may be, the thing producing no further noise. However, its neck lolls from one side to the other, slowly opening and closing its beak. This gives you the impression it's going through some excruciation. You nod to yourself in uncertainty, wondering exactly what you're going to do with it. You brush the sand off its feathers, gathering its wings in. In response, it pivots its head every which way in a disturbing and erratic fashion, beak stuck open, eyes upturned. Oh God, it's dying or something.

You've seen the same kind of movements happen to parrots and caught prey in this process, bringing a chill into your throat, a pit of existentialism in your stomach.

You carry it over the rocks and to the other side, sitting down in the sand and placing it in front of you. It doesn't go limp, keeping its wings folded, but it still squirms. Its odd behaviour disconcerts you, and a heavy air settles over you and this bird.

It doesn't stand up, but begins to roll over, kicking up sand as it begins screaming humanly again. It sings the body electric; despite the fact that it is a bird. Approaching it with two fingers, which are stationed a tense inch away, waiting to be right or wrong. With the human touch, it freezes, and the birdly touch you receive, all smooth, silky feathers. But cold, lifeless, if it could be attributed that way. The feathers keep the warmth to the bird's skin, lying underneath the feathers. Maybe something like humanity is there, hidden with the warmth, and this black and white exterior is a shell.

The bird's nictating membrane twitches again, the bird's chest rising and falling becoming pronounced. As the pale eyelid slides upwards, you see a tinge of liquid red. Blood, as it is, and you're not about to watch this bird die. You decidedly get up, beginning to back away.

It starts to hack freakishly, long and mucosal (even though birds don't really have that), repeating all those movements. This suspends your attention for a bit longer. Suddenly, it points its beak in the air, stretching and contracting its neck vertically, deeper and farther, deeper and farther...

It stops, frozen, slowly turning its head to look at you.

"Surprise," it says, blasting the daylights out of you-

_ PAK _ , like a firework going off, and your eyes shut as you feel a suspicious liquid and strange chunks hit your face. Wincing, an idea of what just happened already emerging. You wipe your face and open your eyes, seeing blood spattered all over your hands and coat. Not to mention the chunks of flesh. And the shoe over there, which isn't yours.

Wait a minute...

It's connected to a leg. And not just a leg, another leg, and then it's a body. Surprise, indeed. And it would only be more a surprise if it  _ just happened to have a face. _ You look up where a face would normally be, and there is a face there, as would normally be, and-

"What?"

You lock eyes with this stranger, who sees that he exists, and that you exist, and that the entire place exists. The glaze over his eyes disappears, revealing confusion. You're equally confused, trying to find any logical explanation as to how this man ended up here, and why he looks... really familiar. The man gives you an overt look of bewilderment, trying to signal his desperation.

Well, you do recognise him, or you don't. But either way, it's neither way, and this is causing the surmounting confusion to climb past its summit, and into the realm of overwhelming deja vu.

"Who are you?" you ask, his eyes then beginning to scan you, looking ambivalent at your state of sanguine staining. He says nothing, and so you try harder to remember. The man, who inexplicably exploded out of a concussed bird, is not saying anything, and that is worrying you.

"Where am I?" he counters with his own question.

"What are you?"

" _ What _ am I? Why do you have blood all over you?"

"A bird exploded, and then you were there! You yourself are covered in it!"

"What?"

"Exactly what I just said!"

He stops, looks down at the wool sweater he's wearing (bloody), looks at his hands (bloody), feels his face (bloody), and then toes at the sand (also bloody). The blast radius is outlined in feathers.

"Really?"

"M-hm."

Between his long hair, long eyelashes, and pronounced philtrum, you feel strongly you should know who he is; because he  _ looks _ familiar, and not in a generic way. Just staring at him for a minute makes you frustrated in your loss for identification.

"Well, I really don't know what to say. There's something wrong here," he finally replies. You realise that not only he looks distinctive, but sounds distinctive. He has an unusual speech habit. "Am I in the afterlife?"

To that, you shake your head. "No. It's California."

The man nods, looking around. "What about the year?"

"What are you, some kind of time traveller?" You continue by telling him the year. His face falls, and he glances at you.

"Nevermind."

"Okay then, who  _ are  _ you?"

"I'm Rick."

Alarm bells, church bells, clock bells, and tubular bells all go off in your head at the same time. You feel your insides burn torridly.  _ Him? _

This was deeply unsettling, compared to the black-and-white or fuzzy colour photographs that he was exclusively featured in. This window into the reality of his existence is terrifying. The sunlight, the definition that can't be captured on camera, the presence itself. You've never had anything to do with Richard Wright. He doesn't know you, he was dead! And yet, as a consumer of products he helped produce, you hold some dreadful reverence. And even if you were to, it'd just be a fabrication, a lie, and Wright is dead anyway, All fiction is false, and no story, even in extreme self-conviction, can translate into real life.

That's when you realise it was all a dream, and wake up. Not there, not here, Rick Wright is still dead, and you're not at Monterey. That trip is next month; you've been fantasising about it too much.

How sad.

At least it's a Saturday, warranting that you do have some downtime, and therefore you kind of just stand there, trying to remember the dream as best as you can. You don't really care about birds, anyway, but you were on audubon.org trying to identify some bird-of-prey, and instead got a faceful of this aves-enthusiast blah-blah-blah. Anyway, you're going to cook breakfast.

...Or not, you think to yourself while opening the refrigerator, spotting a carton of blackberries.

As you rinse them, you begin to wonder about the exact significance of that dream. Its vividity was interesting, and you admit it was fun to interact with, but now you're just sad. Still in your town, with all the regular calls, and-

An audible, blunt noise comes from somewhere in your apartment. From a closet, you believe. Maybe it's one of your cats, whose favourite pastimes are knocking down heavy objects with infeline strength, and you're immediately concerned. You hear the obvious yowling of Packet Filter (yes, that's her name, what can you say about firewalls?), which she only does when she's caught a cockroach or mouse. Please, not more of those, you thought you had already contacted the landlord and gotten this place exterminated! You shake your head in exasperation, beginning your tired saunter towards the usual chaos. Stateful Inspection comes down the hall, purring in fabricated innocence, and in his habitual territoriality brushes against your leg with his black fur.

"What happened there, Si?" you ask as he passes by. Naturally, the cat doesn't respond, continuing down the hall. You head in the opposite direction, turning into the guest room to see Proxy Server, waving her bluish-grey tail as she observes with maximally dilated eyes whatever is going on in the closet. Because of the door, it's out of your view, but you can now hear faint growling from inside the closet- Packet Filter. Rounding the door, you find the periodically feral ginger, along with long scratches on the cardboard boxes to the left. Currently, she's batting at a... large thing underneath a sheet.

"P.F., stop!" you command the assaulting cat. Her head turns towards you to reveal pin-thin pupils, immediately becoming coked as she gives you an innocuous look. Subsequently, she meows, turning around and exiting the closet.

After all three felines have vacated elsewhere, you turn your attention on this thing that you don't remember being in your closet. You're not sure as to what's under the sheets, somewhat cubical, but downsloping from back to front. No, it's got a lot of irregularities, like a sitting statue with the sheet bridging between its limbs. The more you think the latter, the more you're convinced that's what it is. But who placated a Kraftwerkish mannequin in your house?

You pull the sheet off, only to find organic matter. Organic matter being a living thing, and it's not a statue oh god what the who the why here?!!

A jolt of shock runs through, you taking three brisk steps backwards. The other pair of eyes look at you in equal terror, and you slam the closet door.

"Jesus CHRIST, what the hell are you doing in my closet?" you demand.

There is no response.

"Come on, after you've done all that work to intrude here, you have nothing to say?"

Still no response.

"You do realise I can easily access the police from my phone, a knife from my kitchen, and  _ you _ from the closet."

No. Response.

Exasperated, you reopen the closet door, only to find that this person has covered themselves with the sheet once again.

"I know you're still there, don't pretend like you don't exist." You pull of the linen with the force of a matador, casting it to the side. "Man, you're incor-"

The words snag as disbelief overtakes you. No, not possible here, this isn't real. It's just a dream again, isn't it?

You clear your throat, feeling embarrassed and increasingly uncomfortable, as he waits for a response in his fear.

"You're..." you attempt to continue, but can't assemble the right words. What exactly are you supposed to say?

You're awake, check.

He's alive, check.

And he's also in your closet, check.

Oh, God.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not very invested in this, but if anyone wants me to continue, do tell.


End file.
